TO THE MANA BORNE

Fetch quests have you crisscrossing the overworld, and there are plenty of other asides, from surviving a minute in a pit with continually spawning waves of enemies to a bit of literal horseplay. Boosting your magic is perhaps the best reason to probe every corner of the map, though the fairies here are a far cry from Zelda’s: one type behave as if they’re dealing in illicit substances, surreptitiously opening their cloaks to reveal flasks of mana. Elsewhere there are nests to which you can bring your egg form to be warmed by a giant bird, eventually hatching into something much more powerful. Even before it’s cracked, it affords you one of the most useful abilities: an incubator light that lets you spend mana to recover health.